When Ron Paul spoke at the Ames Straw Poll earlier this month, he did not start by launching into a tirade about the Federal Reserve or lamenting the United States’s military policy in Afghanistan. Instead, Paul first spoke about abortion.
It was a surprising twist. Paul is pro-life, and has been for his entire career. But his serious pro-life perspective has often taken a back seat to his views on the economy and foreign policy.
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“We must be pro-life or you cannot be pro-liberty the way I understand it,” Paul said at Ames. Speaking about his experience as a medical student in the Sixties, he talked about seeing one premature baby deliberately being allowed to die and another baby, also premature, being rescued by a diligent medical staff. “My conclusion that very day is you cannot have relative value for life and deal with that.” he observed. “We cannot play God and make those decisions. All life is precious.”
It was not the first time this campaign Paul had taken time out from his more commonly expressed concerns to emphasize his pro-life views. In June, he spoke, via Skype, to the Right to Life convention in Jacksonville, Fla. He has signed the Susan B. Anthony List’s pro-life pledge for presidential candidates. And he announced that the second budget priority for a Paul presidency would be “veto[ing] any spending bill that contains funding for Planned Parenthood, facilities that perform abortion, and all government family-planning schemes.” That came behind vetoing “spending bills that contribute to an unbalanced budget” but ahead of “direct[ing] my administration to cease any further implementation of Obamacare.”
And while Mike Huckabee drew the social-conservative hype in the 2008 election cycle, it was Paul who was the only presidential candidate to speak at that year’s National March for Life in Washington, D.C. Paul also received the endorsement of high-profile pro-life activist Norma McCorvey (“Jane Roe”) in that campaign.
But Paul still has a problem with pro-lifers. He wants to return abortion-legalization decisions to the states, not work to make abortion illegal on the federal level. “Strangely, given that my moral views are akin to theirs, various national pro-life groups have been hostile to my position on this issue. But I also believe in the Constitution, and therefore, I consider it a state-level responsibility to restrain violence against any human being,” Paul wrote in his book Liberty Defined,published this spring.
In practical terms, what Paul proposes is removing abortion-related legislation from the jurisdiction of the federal courts rather than fighting to overturn Roe v. Wade. He views his proposal as “simpler,” since the jurisdiction could be removed via legislation rather than pushing for a Supreme Court decision, and he believes that if the jurisdiction of the federal courts was removed, abortion laws could be decided on a state-by-state basis. “Ending nationally legalized abortions by federal court order is neither a practical answer to the problem nor a constitutionally sound argument,” he wrote.
Paul is suspicious of the motivations of pro-lifers who object to his view that abortion is a matter for the states. “My guess is that the scurrilous attacks by these groups are intended more to discredit my entire defense of liberty and the Constitution than they are to deal with the issue of abortion,” he argued in Liberty Defined. “These same groups have very little interest in being pro-life when it comes to fighting illegal, undeclared wars in the Middle East or preventive (aggressive) wars for religious reasons. An interesting paradox!”
Paul’s federalist views on abortion laws make it unlikely he could ever capture the majority of the social-conservative vote. Rick Perry expressed similar views on abortion and gay-marriage laws in July. Then, after an uproar from social conservatives, he stated that he believed in federal amendments banning abortion and defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
Paul’s most valuable contribution to the pro-life movement may be his insistence that libertarian views not only are compatible with, but are reliant upon, pro-life views. That’s a perspective that distinguishes Paul from the other libertarian in the GOP race — Gary Johnson, who is pro-abortion — and one that he is unapologetic about.
“Today I’m going to emphasize something slightly different from just the cause of liberty because there is something that precedes liberty, and that is life,” Paul said at Ames. “I believe in a very limited role for government, but the prime reason that government exists in a free society is to protect liberty but also to protect life.”
Just in case that wasn’t clear enough, Paul added, “And I mean all life.”
Yeah, and Mussolini made the trains run on time.
Paul means to protect "all life" yet he is indifferent when it comes to protecting lives of people who want to live in freedom. His libertarianism includes decimating the military, getting our troops out of other countries leaving us and our allies vulnerable to mischief makers, not fighting enemies of freedom, not finding enemies even when they kill Americans, and allowing Iran to have nuclear weapons. Iran is the country causing deaths and destruction all over the world yet Paul, the libertarian, defends Iran's right to have weapons. After all, he says, they have the right to defend themselves. Yeah, like we should defend Hitler and Stalin to have such rights. In Ron Paul's world there are no goodies and baddies and when Americans are killed in wars, those lives he is not worried about protecting.
I know Paul would say if we weren't in places we don't belong, Americans wouldn't be getting killed. But Ron Paul speaks in a vacuum remember nothing about history.
He would probably be one of those who blames Americans for 9/11 because if we hadn't been in Saudi Arabia or siding with Israel, etc...
Sorry, I find this kind of speech about "protecting all life" in such a world view quaint, excuse me, I should say absurd.
Seriously.. how many more conflicts should we go looking for around the world, in the name of protecting peoples' right to live in freedom?
There are COUNTLESS places we could select, but is it Constitutional and can we afford it?
It's time we allow other countries to start bearing the burden for regional security. Otherwise, they will always rely on the US taxpayer and America's sons and daughters to do their leg work for them!
It's time we stop sticking our noses into everyone's spats. Let's return to the conservative tradition of non-intervention (remember Eisenhower didn't get us involved in wars, Nixon ran on ending the Vietnam war, Reagan pulled us out of the Middle East and said we could never understand their "irrational" politics, and George W. Bush ran on having a "humble" foreign policy with no nation building)
Not a single Founding Father who Governed, nor any Republicans, including Robert Taft, ever supported anything close to Ron Paul's foreign policy which is way to the left of Obama and in line with Noam Chomsky and Code Pink.
Ron Paul is a McGovernite on Foreign Policy, his moral relativism would get us all killed.
Considering the leftist heritage of Neo-Cons and the pro abortion position of the left I can understand their ignoring or discounting Dr. Paul’s principled stance on abortion. The Soc-Cons are another matter. I think many are unaware of his position and many who are aware, choose to ignore it because it does not fit in with their view of him as some sort gold standard advocating Pied Piper of America’s youth. They also recognize that if his pro life position was better known it might draw support from whichever pet candidate they advocate. I am no Paulbot, and I may not vote for him in the primary. I have some serious disagreements with him. I do credit him with being among the most unwavering and logically consistent in his positions of ll the candidates.
Ron Paul refereed to NATO action in Lybia as 'warmongering'.
The reason NATO (I mean France) got involved was because the Lybian air force was bombing civilians, and some pilots flew to Sicily(?) rather than kill their own people.
Psst! Hey Freedom, don't look now, but your ignorance is showing!
Paul is just saying what Thomas jefferson and George Washington would have said. That is, it is not good for the US to involve its self in foreign wars. We are not the worlds police and to be so is a losing position for the US.
Let me remind you, we are broke and the the future of my children are being mortgaged.
I don't think Paul disagrees with war as a whole, just unconstitutional war. Paul is a Constutionalist (which is something we should desire in an Amercian president). And according to the constitution only Congress has the power to enact war. Something that hasn't been done since WWII.
As far as Iran and Israel. Let's have a nuke count and keep score.
Iran nukes: 0
Israel nukes: 300+
I think Isreal can take care of its self.
One more thing. According to the Ron Paul Campaign, he receives more donations from military than all the rest of the candidates combined. I'll let you draw your own conclusion.
Freedom,
Are you familiar with the term boil the ocean?
Do you not get even a clue on how well our “WAR” on terror is going?
Americans do not lose when we know “WHY” we are fighting and “WHO” we are fighting. Do you really know why we are fighting, or even whom we are fighting?
Give things more than a moment’s consideration and think before you spot off without thinking.
On this Ron Paul is right. Libertarian rights presuppose that all who are dispostionally rational agents when able to function properly (and not just people who are rational agents at the moment) are ends in themselves. I cannot uphold my freedom and deny a Downs Syndrome fetus the right to life which is the principle of whatever freedom they enjoy.
I unaffectionately call the Romney candidacy - "Careening to Gomorrah" He will make statement after statement in the next few months which will align him sqarely in the middle. Conservatives will rue the day he became their candidate.
I am concerned with candidates like Perry and Romney who automatically retreat from a states rights/responsibilities argument when challenged about gay marriage, abortion, or any of the social issues. (Are they ignorant of the constitution or are they deliberately ignoring it?) If those things aren't states issues, constitutionally speaking, then what is? Most mainstream republicans don't trust the constitution or the concept of state sovereignty any more than democrats. You so-called moderates need to wake up about this. You can argue with Ron Paul on various issues and nitpick his statements, but he is able to boil problems down to their essence in short order and that is his appeal to the masses and why the news media can't stand him.
Regarding the abortion question though, if we want Massachusetts and Oklahoma to be alike, then we can continue down this federalism pathway and the whole thing can go to hell in a handbasket. I for one think the only way to address the abortion issue is to make it a state issue. At least then, I can know that there is a safe place where life is protected - and possibility that the trend will spread. Right now, making this a giant unsolvable national question leaves the whole damned country a gomorrah.
I tend to agree with Mr. Paul, but I would take the issue even more local. Make abortion a county by county issue with strict residency requirements. This way people would feel more in control of this highly charged issue.
and what happens when residents, say a Minor, in your county crosses County Lines to an Abortion County and gets an abortion without Parental consent???? Ron Paul thinks thats just dandy and the Federal Govt. has no jurisdiction to step in and protect "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit"
Constitutionally Paul is dead wrong, anyone that knows much Constittional history knows this. The first Congress and George Washington passed multiple Federal Laws outside the 3 he claims the Constitutionl provides for. Including making it a FEDERAL CRIME to MURDER a Federal Agent.....not to mention the Judicial Act.
The issue of murdering a federal agent seems to be a gray issue that can reasonably argued to be within federal jurisdiction even if the prosecution of most murder is not.
That said, however, even Washington wasn't always consistent about sticking to the constitution. He should have been more consistent, but he wasn't perfect.
Paul is not really Pro-Life, he is for an extreme version of "State's Rights". During the 2008 campaign every GOP candidate had a zero rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America, except Ron Paul. He received a 65% score in 2006, 75% in 2005 and 65% in 2004.
He has received high ratings because he'd vote in NARAL and Abortion interest on things like Minors crossing State lines to get abortions, Paul and NARAL think that is ok, and Federal Govt. has no say.
Do your homework on Paul NR. His rhetoric is selective based on his audience, further his record on many things is abysmal.
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